City of Vienna Chooses Linux 268
Bill Kendrick writes "Back in January, ZDNet reported that the city of Vienna, Austria was looking to move at least a portion of its desktops to Linux. Well, it looks like it happened (in German; use the fish). Their official distro is based on Debian with KDE, and is called WEINUX." Update: 07/06 12:49 GMT by T : Several readers wrote to correct the spelling here: the correct name of the distro is "WIENUX."
Gawd (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Gawd (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Gawd (Score:2)
The Rathaus, where most Linux installations will run is located in the first district and can be reached with U2, 1, 2 or D. To get in the city from the vienna international airport (which is in Schwechat) you could take the new train called CAT. Enjoy your stay =)
b4n
PS: Mind the kangarous - no just
All right (Score:5, Funny)
Re:All right (Score:5, Informative)
Re:All right (Score:5, Funny)
Unless you are an early Linux adopter, and have just been compared to thumbtacks.
You mean like a snowball ?... (Score:2)
Re:All right (Score:2, Funny)
The distribution is called "WIENUX" (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The distribution is called "WIENUX" (Score:2, Funny)
Re:The distribution is called "WIENUX" (Score:3, Funny)
[...] not "Wein" (which means wine in German, and has nothing to do with Vienna).
It also means "cry" (as an imperative), which is something some austrian microsoft minions might do now
Re:The distribution is called "WIENUX" (Score:2)
I wonder why it is that most French cities have their original names in English but so many German/Austrian cities (Vienna, Munich/Munchen, Koln/Cologne, etc) do not..?
Re:The distribution is called "WIENUX" (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The distribution is called "WIENUX" (Score:5, Informative)
So English often has a romanized version of the german name for german towns, while for french towns the name is already roman, thus no change.
An example would be Muenchen -> Munich.
A second factor is that the west and south german towns often have roman roots and were founded by roman soldiers as frontier towns and castles to defend the Limes (the roman border) against the Germans. Those towns have a 2000 year old latin name, which is still reflected in English, but the german name was heavily changed due to bad spelling and pronounciation by the inhabitants.
Examples for the later:
Koeln, latin name Colonia Agrippina -> Cologne.
Wien, latin name Vindobona -> Vienna
Trier, latin name Augusta Treverorum (this one is Trier in English too
For north and east german towns the english name often is the german one, because those towns were founded much later and started out either with a german name anyway (Hamburg, Bremen...) or have a name that is derived from the old slawic name (Berlin [this one is still slawic], Drezdany -> Dresden, Lipa -> Leipzig, Kamenice -> Chemnitz), where only the german name survived.
Re:The distribution is called "WIENUX" (Score:2)
Actually, "Treves" is used in English as well.
What is really interesting is looking at old maps. You can usually find all kinds of variants. Usually they're not even self-consistent. E.g I looked at an english map of central Europe where Belgrade was "Belgrade" (anglified slavic name), but Novi Sad was "Neusatz" (german name), and several of the surrounding towns had Hungarian or Slavic names or Germanified versions, or even angli
Re:The distribution is called "WIENUX" (Score:2)
Re:The distribution is called "WIENUX" (Score:2)
Re:The distribution is called "WIENUX" (Score:2)
The Germans 2000 years ago weren't big in town founding. They had villages wi
Re:The distribution is called "WIENUX" (Score:5, Funny)
[1] in the UK, amusingly, the legal drinking age is *5* if at home with a parent/guardian present. But then we exported all the Puritans to the US ;-)
Re:The distribution is called "WIENUX" (Score:2)
Re:The distribution is called "WIENUX" (Score:2)
Re:The distribution is called "WIENUX" (Score:2)
1) The parents permission, at home.
or
2) The prescription of a doctor (I've actually heard stories where this has happened).
Re:The distribution is called "WIENUX" (Score:2)
Re:The distribution is called "WIENUX" (Score:2, Informative)
Re:The distribution is called "WIENUX" (Score:2)
They're missing some good wordplay here. If they package the WIENUX distro together with WINE, to run Windows apps, the resulting package should obviously be called WEINUX.
There's gotta be a bunch more good English/Deutsch puns in there
Ambitious targets (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a very ambitious target if they are only offering it, not saying "you will use this".
__
Funny Adult Videos and Pictures [laughdaily.com]
Re:Ambitious targets (Score:3, Insightful)
They should aim to make Linux the standard SOE & using Microsoft products to support users who require more specialised programs.
PD in basic linux isn't hard especially with KDE.
Are you serious? (Score:2, Insightful)
It's better to offer it as an option, and slowly push it. It also gives them a chance to work out the kinks on the users who don't mind as
Re:Ambitious targets (Score:5, Insightful)
Amazing how quick the battlecry goes from "users should have choice" to "users should use linux"...
Re:Ambitious targets (Score:5, Interesting)
90% of all my problems are troubleshooting desktop problems with WinXP and also problems with Word, Excell & Outlook. I am not saying that by using Linux these problems will disapear, but it will be cheaper to support these Programs because less is being spent on software licencing.
Its simple economics the only difference between a Linux system & Windows system for users who only need to use the basics is price, why spend X amount of dollars on one thing when you can get the same result much cheaper.
I do believe in choice, but I don't see the logic in going to the expense of something because its believed to be easier, I am not completley Pro linux, but in a government environment where Tax payers are paying for everything, the best value alternative seems much more appealing.
Re:Ambitious targets (Score:2)
Re:Ambitious targets (Score:5, Insightful)
The battlecry (as you term it) is actually "customers should have choice".
In a corporate environment the customer is the organisation.
Re:Ambitious targets (Score:2)
Huh? (Score:2)
There's no conflict at all here - users DO have choice, and all the GP said is, he thinks they should choose Linux and not choose Microsoft, based on certain valid technical and economic considerations. What's the problem exactly? Are you trying to imply that anyone who expresses an opinion on which they honestly think would be the best choice must inherently be making a purely ideological decision? That a truly unbiased person would always only express totally neutral opinions? Are you trying to subtly man
Users shouldn't have a choice (Score:2)
Of course some flexibility is a good idea. If the user has special needs, knows what he is doing, and understand that he will not get support from the IT center, he can choose another platform than the organizational standard.
Re:Ambitious targets (Score:3, Informative)
drsmitty misquoted the poster and confounded "should use linux and ms windows" with "should use linux" - and this error somehow adds up to "insightful"?
Re:Ambitious targets (Score:3, Interesting)
Ok, normally I hate these types of introductions (and my issue with them is somewhat accurate even now - "I like the thing but I hate it"), but I use Linux in my professional life, will push for it everywhere I will ever work, and use it for many things in my private life. I really do not like windows, but unfortuantly for some uses relying o
Re:Ambitious targets (Score:2)
Linux on the desktop is dead? Wow how did I miss that news? Here I thought linux on the desktop was growing. That every day more corporations and cities were migrating more desktops to it. That entire countries were contomplating migrations to linux desktops.
Silly me, I was just looking at the exploding numbers, the constant improvement, the slew of commercial support and the backing of big time enterprise players like HP, Novell
Re:Ambitious targets (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Ambitious targets (Score:2, Informative)
The move to Linux in Munich is on a massive sale, whereas in Vienna it is just a small experiment (some 100 users). The move to OpenOffice is not on a small scale though. OpenOffice will be
Spelling Mistake (Score:2, Informative)
Why must... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why must... (Score:5, Insightful)
nice approach (Score:4, Insightful)
After all, with this everything is implemented THEY need, nothing more and nothing less...they take advantage of the biggest advantage of OSS:
Choice!
Instead of using a company or existing product per se (I know, its based in Debian), they changed it to their needs and they offer a voluntary change for the employees (at least at the beginning).
I wish them luck and hope they will make progress fast.
This means nothing to me. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:This means nothing to me. (Score:2)
It has to be said... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:It has to be said... (Score:2)
Re:It has to be said... (Score:2)
Clarifications (Score:5, Funny)
* no, we are not the country with the kangaroos
* no, we don't have a Nazi government (I keep hearing that from Americans all the time)
* our Wiener Schnitzel is really tasty, yeah
* our kids don't go to school by skiing (well, most of them don't)
* we don't eat much sauerkraut. That's what Germans do.
* never confuse us with Germans. We really don't like that. Its like confusing americans with canadians. They eat us alive if we do this.
* We don't wear Lederhosen all the time.
Re:Clarifications (Score:2)
Yep. That's Australia [abc.net.au]
Re:SO FUCK OFF TO RUSSIA COMMIE (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Clarifications (Score:2, Funny)
* virtually NOBODY in Austria has ever heard of "The Sound of Music", let alone seen it. And those who have were shocked, disgusted and terrified.
Re:Clarifications (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Clarifications (Score:2, Funny)
Those damned Yankees keep getting things back to front.
Re:Clarifications (Score:2, Insightful)
No, we don't. Well, at least most of us don't - you couldn't force me to eat that crap. But there are weirdos everywhere...
Re:Clarifications (Score:5, Funny)
* yes, we are the country with the kangaroos
* no, we don't have a convict government
* our meat pies are really tasty, yeah
* our kids don't go to school by sitting in a kangaroo pouch (well, most of them don't)
* we don't have sex with sheep. That's what New Zealanders do.
* never confuse us with New Zealanders. We really don't like that. Its like confusing americans with canadians. They eat us alive if we do this.
* We don't wear akubra hats all the time.
* Yes, at the olympics they once played the Austrian national anthem when we won gold.
Re:Clarifications (Score:5, Funny)
* Yes we are the country with the sheep
* We use the sheep for meat and wool, and are not entirely sure what Australians think sheep are kept for, or why they would immediately jump to the conclusions they do.
* Every famous Australian is really a New Zealander.
* Every one of them.
Re:Clarifications (Score:2)
Shhh, don't tell them that. We want them to keep Russell Crowe.
So wait. (Score:2)
+++
Husi is where's it at [hulver.com]
Re:Clarifications (Score:2, Funny)
Correct: Australians don't have sex, they drink beer. New Zealanders have all the sex with frustrated Australian women. The fleece is just there to confuse the Australian men (and it's comfy out there in the desert).
* most Australians ARE called Bruce
* most Australians go out in drag on Saturday night and are then called Sheila (this is very confusing for NZ sex tourists!)
* all gay Australians live in London, England's West End (beware of girl
Re:Clarifications (Score:3, Funny)
* yes, we are the country with the tazmanian devils
* no we don't have a Monarchy government
* our fishes are really tasty, yeah
* our kids don't go to school by swimming (well, most of them don't)
* we don't have sex with sheep that's what Australians do.
* never confuse us with Australians. We really dont' like that. It's like confusing Americans with Canadians. They swear at us incomprehensibly if we do this.
Re:Clarifications (Score:2)
* yes, we are the country with the kiwis
* no, we are not a state of Australia, so we definitely do not have a convict government.
* we invented the pavlova desert, and our pies don't contain marsupials
* our kids don't go to school by riding flightless birds.
* we don't have sex with sheep. Neither do we have a song where the lyrics say "Tie my kangaroo down sport".
* never confuse us with Australians. It's bad enough
Re:Clarifications (Score:2, Funny)
What Happens when an Australian decides to emigrate to new Zealand?
Answer: The average IQ of both countries goes up
Reverse the countries if you happen to be from NZ
Australian's even need to import wit (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Clarifications (Score:2)
* yes, there is a lot of corn grown around here
* yes, we do hold those silly caucuses here to help select the presidential candidates
* those Iowa chops are really tasty
* most kids don't walk two miles to school. They ride a school bus.
* we don't have sex with sheep. I won't comment about the pigs, though.
* don't confuse us with Ohio or Idaho. We really don't like that. It's like confusing americans with canadians. Worse act
Re:Clarifications (Score:2)
Re:Clarifications (Score:2, Informative)
* Nope, there's no kangaroos
* No, there's no Nazi government
* The Wiener Schnitzel IS quite tasty. I've always loved veal.
* It DID snow both times I was there, and both trips happened to be in April. Snow doesn't stick to the ground in Wien though.
* No sauerkraut to be found
* Certainly not German.
* I only saw Lederhosen once, and that was on TV. I didn't catch all of it, but I think it was a German character anyway.
I plan
Re:Clarifications (Score:2)
But you should try Käsekrainer (please don't ask me how it's called in English). It's like a bratwurst with cheese in it. You can find it at the various Würstlstandl (like sausage/hotdog-stand). Best served with a piece of bread and mustard (your mileage may vary).
b4n
Re:Clarifications (Score:2)
Every Austrian not living in Vienna will tell you that "Vienna is different".
The rest of Austria doesnt like people living in Vienna.
Vienna the only baroque city ? yeah right
Re:Clarifications (Score:2)
Follow Up Story (Score:5, Insightful)
Kind of like some of the countless U.S. reality shows where people and houses are made over (e.g. - The Swan, The Biggest Loser, Extreme Home Makeover). Rather than short term focus I'd love to see the shows check in a year later to see how things look. That's more indicative of true success and failure.
Re:Follow Up Story (Score:2)
My impression is that in most of those heavily-hyped cases, nothing ever wound up happening at all.
Rather than short term focus I'd love to see the shows check in a year later to see how things look. That's more indicative of true success and failure.
I believe Joe Millionaire wound up ditching the shy kindergarten teacher for the bondage video model he had previously relegated to second place, if that's any help.
Re:Follow Up Story (Score:2)
The city of Largo seems to have done well and they are even looking to hire people with general purpose computer/Linux knowledge.
Largo Loves Linux [canopener.ca]
Enjoy,
Re:Follow Up Story (Score:2)
(To the degree that a small city that will probably be subsumed by the Church of Scientology in the next few decades qualifies as "major"...)
Human translation of article (Score:5, Informative)
---
Correspondence of the Office of the Mayor (July 5th, 2005)
WIENUX-Day: Viennese Solution for Open Source
Open Source in Vienna (Wien) - Presentation of WIENUX
Vienna (RK). Today Stadtrat (city councillor) member Rudi Schicker presented the current status of OS-usage in Vienna during a media conference in the main public library of Vienna. Together with Gemeinderat (councillor) A. Schieder and Nationalratsabgeordnetem (member of national parliament) Josef Broukal, WIENUX was presented, the version of Linux prepared for use in the city of Vienna. During a WIENUX information day, employees of the city of Vienna could get information about WIENUX and OpenOffice.org and try out Linux and OpenOffice.org on the spot. As Schicker emphasizes: "it's not about making decisions so to say from above, but giving the employees individual freedoms where possible, for a creative administration, ".
Vienna has already used OSS products for several years in the server area. Because of the positive experiences made, the development of OSS standard componentes for desktops has been observed for some time, and their use been investigated in study. The MA 14-ADV (IT department???) administrates 18,000 PCs, 8,200 printers and 560 servers. Most desktops run under Windows 2000, whose support by Microsoft will last until 2010, but there is not that much time. "Every five to seven years, a great pressure to migrate evolves, even if you skip over one to two versions" points out department head Dipl.- Ing. (engineer) SR Erwin Gillich. Therefore a migration of the systems would be due three years earlier, at the latest 2008, in contrast to Munich [another Linux deployment], where the time pressure was much greater because of obsolete hard- and software.
Open Source study
During a study, a comprehensive inventory of the sw used on every PC was made and used as a basis for finding the migration potential. The results of the study "OSS in the Magistrat Wien" show, that about 7,500 PCs could use the licensing-cost-free OpenOffice.org instead of MS Office. 4,800 of these PCs could even be switched to an OSS operating system.
In October 2004, a working group was started, which worked on the use of OS sw on the desktops of the Magistrat. The requirement was to develop an open source platform which can communicate with the existing MS infrastructure. The results are the custom-tailored operating system WIENUX and the use of OpenOffice.org. Both are offered by the MA 14-ADV in the course of a "gentle product introduction" beginning in June 2005.
Voluntary switchover
The most important consideration is voluntariness: Those who want to can choose the open source way; who is attached to the old products, may stay there. The licensing-cost-free operating system WIENUX was developed based on Debian with the KDE (Kool Desktop Enviroment) desktop. Firefox is used as the web browser, emails can be accessed using MS Outlook WebAccess, there is also an SAP-access and various additional tools. WIENUX is under the so-called GNU/GPL (GNU General Public Licence).
OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org, which is also free of licensing cost, is the counterpart to MS-Office, which the Magistrat currently uses. It can be installed in a cross-platform fashion on both WIENUX- and MS-Windows-PCs, an can be used in parallel to MS-Office under Windows2000. OOo comprises the programs Writer (for writing documents), Calc (for making tables), Impress (for presentations), Draw (drawing program), Base (DB module) and Math (scientific formula editor).
Making experiences
In order t
Re:Human translation of article (Score:2)
http://www.wien.gv.at/ma14/pdf/oss-studie-englisc
The german full version is here:
http://www.wien.gv.at/ma14/pdf/oss-studie-deutsch
Difficult to overstate the importance of this (Score:4, Interesting)
Historically, Wien has always been to the german speaking world what Carthage was to the Greeks - the centre of learning and the export of culture and ideas. Although its importance waned somewhat in the early 20th century, the Cold War and events since has cemented its position as the premier exporter of German business innovation.
So, instead of reading Wien in the summary above, in a few years you can read it as "Germany and Austria". My bet is, such is the influence of Wien, that a successful Linuks experiment will "trickle down" into emulation by a whole host of cities throughout the german speaking world. Linus deserves a pat on the back for his bargaining prowess.
Younux (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Neutralized (Score:2)
Re:Neutralized (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Please, people. Lets not start a distro war... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Please, people. Lets not start a distro war... (Score:2)
Re:Please, people. Lets not start a distro war... (Score:2, Informative)
Kubuntu, folks. Kubuntu. It defaults to KDE. [kubuntu.org.uk]
Re:Please, people. Lets not start a distro war... (Score:2)
Ha ha (Score:2)
That's funny, I just updated to FC4 from FC1 without a hitch. It runs great.
I think you don't know what you're talking about.
Re:Please, people. Lets not start a distro war... (Score:2)
Re:Please, people. Lets not start a distro war... (Score:2)
As a Debian/Xandros user, I can confirm that I can't even remember how we used to do this any more ;-)
J.
Re:Please, people. Lets not start a distro war... (Score:2)
Re:Please, people. Lets not start a distro war... (Score:4, Insightful)
Lets just say Gnome is better than KDE regardless of distro.
And you get Informative when starting an post with that line.
Go Gnome-ers, just please, keep it [i.e. Gnome] out of my face.
Re:Please, people. Lets not start a distro war... (Score:2)
vienna... austria? (Score:2)
Dubya, is that you? (Score:5, Funny)
Dubya, is that really you on the other end?
Vienna is in Austria. You know, sorta like
Germany, but with less touristy places...
Okay, okay. Where Arnold the Governator is
from. Venice is in Italy -- the western end
of the Silk Road. Okay, okay. The city that
is sinking into its own sewage system.
Jeez, Dubya, open a geography book once in
a while, okay? Geography -- that's the study
of places and how its history and culture is
different (like Connecticut and Texas). Okay,
okay. Book -- Those kinda square things with
writing on the inside. A whole bunch of them
are used like a wall covering where you live.
(And our lesson is done for the day. Now
go outside and play some golf on the moors.
Dress warmly, Dubya, 'cause it gets cold and
damp in that place your at now (Scotland).)
Re:when sahll we have a critical mass? (Score:4, Interesting)
Large corporations usually dont lose nights of sleep when the `pro` segment of their customers, the ones who know well enough to ask for better, decide to switch to solutions that require more effort and/or knowledge.
Large corporations sell to people who know no better, and cant be bothered too. Smaller, more boutiqued, and/or specialized firms or user groups tend to cater to the everyday Joe Slob who just wants the simple music downloads and fastest pr0n access box for cheap, especially when if anything goes wrong they have other people to call up and yell at.
Seriously, nobody ever researched all the possible pros and cons of different architectures, and decided `hey, you know what? Im gonna design my mission-critical, or high-performance application on the one operating system rated to have the most extensive vulnerabilities, which cause billions of dollars of loss a year, cause well im feeling kinda lucky today.`
Know some admins I wouldnt piss on if their servers were on fire who use linux... badly, but most of the good admins i know who use windows do so because they have no choice. Seriously, EVERY pro app in engineering, accounting, and most of the other things people use in real life has an up-to-date version on windows, not so much for linux or even apple, and MSs beautiful `bundling? what bundling, its innovation` crap means any of those apps that needs a network framework needs a complete active directory or even windows PDC to work properly. Its hard to keep kids off crack when the schools serve it with lunch.
My greater fear is that over the last few years, linux has been getting better and better at being completely invisible. You can set up a linux openldap and samba system well enough that no one can tell the difference. Half the transparent gateways nowadays run some brand of linux, along with those new insta-nas boxes. Its not a bad thing for linux, but its kinda bad for linux on the desktop, because it makes the desktop part of linux the least neccessary. Windows demands a MS framework to run, linux is so nice you could slave it to a crazy, naked popcorn machine and it would work happily without a squeak.
Its not that linux has a disadvantage, MS just plays their (unfair, and greedy)advantage a lot harder on everybody else, and in the OS wars homecourt advantage is everything, ask OS/2. Bundling does hurt, just not the way youd think.
Re:when sahll we have a critical mass? (Score:2)
"She said she loved me but I knew she was lyin', ah hah hah
Felt like an Arab who was dancin' through Zion, ah hah hah
Don't call the doctor if you just feel like cryin', ah hah hah
It's all da-da-da-down to 'Goodnight, Vienna'..."
Re:when sahll we have a critical mass? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:when sahll we have a critical mass? (Score:3, Informative)
Even if, for example, DELL started offering Linux as an alternative, most people would probably stick with what they know, MS Windows. Sure, the market share of Linux would increase, but I don't think it would be widely used by your average consumer.
Well, that little market share increase would be in the newbie/inexperienced/regular joe sector.
If like one inexperienced guy cou
Re:Who's next? (Score:2)
Re:Who's next? (Score:2, Funny)
Simpsons, is there anything you haven't covered? (Score:4, Funny)
Principal Skinner: Whoever did this is in very deep trouble.
Martin: And a sloppy speller, too. The preferred spelling of `weiner' is W-I-E-N-E-R, although E-I is an acceptable ethnic variant.
Principal Skinner: Good point.